


When the bell Chimes

by auctora



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Destroy Ending, Post-Canon, post-ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 10:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4622334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auctora/pseuds/auctora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's something Turians are taught from birth. If even one person is still left standing at the end of a war, then the fight was worth it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the bell Chimes

Rubble filled the flaming, dirt filled streets as both men and women clad in black armour stalked them. They were clearly looking for something or someone, yet seemingly scared of what they might find. Tattered flags fly full of pride, beaming to the grey and dreary world below the Union Jack. The flags pride seemed to press on the weary band of soldiers, now reminded of times long since passed where the nation was also in ruins. The soldiers, now pressing past the earthly remains of a now dead enemy, still radiating warmth from its metallic, bullet ridden skin. The men and women knew who they sought, but seeing the entire city in ruins cast doubt on if they would be alive.

 

Rain began to softly fall as the old, half ruined tower clock chimed out the hour. Still, though, the small band of soldiers pressed onwards past half ruined rocket artillery batteries. The smell of the rotting and half devoured dead, still all too poignant. The smell that reeked through the air, much to the dismay of the passing troops, seemed to linger in the nose for just a minute longer than any smell should have. But even, still the soldiers pressed on, driven even harder now by the sounds of the old tower clock, chiming to the hour, half praying it wasn’t chiming a death.

 

It was hardly more than an hour ago that it had all happened, even the citadel seemed to float un-moved by the events that just occurred. Both Aliens and Humans combed the many lifeless corpses of Reapers that littered the city, some with more hope than others. Still un-daunted, the group of soldiers pressed on, searching under every piece of rubble and under every corpse. Hope for the small group began to wane as the soft rain slowly turned into a torrent, churning up the once hard dirt into mud. The now all too distant tower clock chimed once more as scorched rubble that once stood defiant, now succumbed to both the rain and the mud. It seemed impossible to find what the group was looking for, especially alive.

 

Still the group pressed on, half walking and half wading, through the ruined city. It wasn’t long until the group came across a large pile of rubble, not concrete and stone as though it had at one point belonged to a once proud building, but rather a mix of Steel, Iron and Titanium, all twisted in impossible ways, and all still warm despite the rain. With renewed vigour, the soldiers began to pick over the rubble, removing a piece of it only when they could be sure that they would not step on any other bits of metal while doing so. It would have taken days to clear all the rubble, even without the rain and the mud, but the men and women didn’t care. For what felt like hours, the soldiers moved pieces of the debris in the cold, unrelenting rain, all of a sudden, all work stopped. The distant bell tower chimed once more, this time, though, it was as if the tower was with sadness, chiming a death. The soldiers could see, plain as day, that sitting amongst the rubble lay a body, a single hand lay across the chest. Despite the fact that the armour had half melted to the body, the soldiers knew who they found, the faint N7 told them all who it was. Shepard.

 

The body was half broken, and probably half dead, but blood still seeped out of Shepard’s body, only to be washed away by the rain. One of the Soldiers, a private and not a day older than 20, called something into his radio as the groups medic watched Shepard’s vital signs on her Omni-tool, far too low, but stable none-the-less. It didn’t take long for someone to send a shuttle to the group, clearly someone pulled some strings there, but it didn’t matter now. The soldiers, now bolstered by a handful of Turians, lifted Shepard into the shuttle, and out of the rain. Death herself couldn’t conquer Shepard, and the soldiers knew it. For once, the chimes of the distant tower clock did not seem all that sad to the soldiers, anymore.


End file.
